Friday, December 14, 2007

Parent-teacher?

This week I had my very first parent-teacher conferences ever. For some reason, the parents of my students never cared to talk to their kid's music teacher. But this year it's different: I'm a mentor. And with that I have the responsibility to oversee the grades of my students. Parents want to talk about the behavior of their child, and sometimes they just want to meet the mentor.But I never knew that parent-teacher conferences could also be about the teacher's parents.I was talking to Betty's parents. (You may already know that I never use my students' real names). I was pretty proud of Betty's grades, and so were her parents. So after discussing her behavior at school we got to talk about how Betty's mom had been a student of my dad's. (Who still teaches music at a different branch of our school.) She talks about how consistent he was, and strict but good. At that point Betty's step-dad says "Music, oh my gosh. Our teacher was horrible, SO strict! Yeah, I'll never forget Mr. M. He was awful."Betty's mom cringes and elbows her husband, who looks like he's about to start another anecdote on the horrors of playing the recorder. "That's the teacher's father!".Step-dad shrugs and says: "No he's not, her name is Ms. S!""Yeah, just like her husband." mother says, and looks at me apologetically.Step-dad turns pink.Betty, her mother and I just laugh..